Let's get it out of the way. 2022 turned out to be an enormous pile of shit. My experience can be easily applied to many people I've been lucky to encounter and talk to over the past few weeks. Indeed 2022 was a bummer, a shitstorm. It might be an interesting mental exercise to evaluate in retrospect what went wrong and where I landed myself by the end of 22'. As a matter of fact, it'll be a series of posts where I try dissect this strange period of my life.  

Some elephants in the room are easy to digest and state heads on. I've toyed with an immigration idea for some time to finally land on the conclusion that I have to postpone the move. I'm writing this post fully aware that I will not be able to quickly leave the country in the near future. Weighing in all the pros and cons of rapid immigration resulted from the substantial lack of funding, hard technical skills, and logistical troubles. Most of my time nowadays is spent learning and fixing all the necessary hard skills for the next chapter of my life. On the sideline, there're many passion projects with various degrees of potential success (or failures), which we continue to develop with the team at ThinkPink.

Overall, life became less turbulent in the final quarter of 22'. That's if you try to stay away from the "current thing" and follow a strict information diet. Money-wise, a few trading moves here and there allow for some mediocre gains. And at the same time, the cheap cost of living allows compounding all the money left from monthly spending. With that put aside and enough time on my hands, I read, watch, and consume a lot, giving me tremendous joy and extra knowledge. I write much more than I'm used to; that, for sure, made me a better thinker and allowed me to clear my head and bring new ideas into the world. 

But I'm most proud of the number of fitness habits I've gained this year. Talking about the one silver lining: 2022 is the most active year of my life in terms of physical activity. I never felt any healthier, and it warms my heart to know that it will only compound over the years if I stick to it. Also, I never took a proper break for the whole year, but that's more of a good thing. Unfortunately, my partner doesn't share the same attitude (that's why the first few weeks of 23' we'll probably spend on traveling around). That's where I stand as of this writing. 

Looking forward, I feel that the parts "future-Me" would want to review the most are mistakes and opportunities 22' have presented. 

Early in my professional career, the capacity to "rewind back" was my guiding light across every shitty cinema project that came into my hands. During a challenging shoot or a painful dialog with the client, this was my imaginary lifevest that rendered everything temporary. "I can always start something new" is how I used to convince myself. Now I've realized that holding the "rewind back" game card with a tight grip means never challenging yourself to the limits necessary to succeed in any endeavor. You live with the idea that whatever you do is reversible, which leaves a mark on any effort you consider unknown – "if it's bad, I can go back." And it's even more challenging to outline the progress scale: any potential win is perceived as a result of contingency. At the same time, any loss is a death sentence, so you get the "rewind back" card closer and closer to your heart. That's why almost any previous attempts at changing my career path before 2022 stopped when I realized that either the results were slow or the mistakes were not worth the pain. And here's why I'm ultimately grateful for everything that happened this year. The systems that I used to rely on in my filmmaking career are gone. The professionals I worked with, companies and investors – all disappeared. The career game suddenly became zero-sum, and I got a chance to go all in without fear of making mistakes. Web3 is no longer a side hustle I read about during the int/ext shootings. It became a lifestyle and a chance to reinvent myself into a better human being. For that alone, 2022 was not a disastrous year but somewhat groundbreaking. There's nothing to rewind back to now – only the future is ahead. 

I'll write more about Balaji in future posts because he's a single human being that has turned my brain and exposed it to the world of technology and science this year on 360. As far away from general perception as it stays now, the concept of The Network State empowers me to believe that this is the answer to the kind of system I would want to participate in in the next chapter of my life. We have many online communities today, but only a few are highly aligned with outside metrics like common interests or what platform you happen to be on. Although the internet has allowed people to reach massive audiences across the globe, we have yet to fully appreciate its potential to improve the number of connections and the quality of connections. You are no longer limited to those in close proximity. You can be a recognized economic and social force. I'm tired of projects that prey on loneliness to sell some promise of community in the metaverse. Now, the best and brightest minds started devoting their resources to tackling this problem – so it's exciting to see projects like Praxis emerge. So it's tempting to join an engineering movement of moral innovation and collective action. I'm not going to say that you should read The Network State because you have probably already done it or not going to. But that'll be one of the most important pieces of writing going forward into 2023 and beyond.

In a way, that's understandable. Across the different corners of the world, you can count a vast number of people feeling unstable after everything this year has brought. Be it the glooming recession, continuous war, climate change, AI advancements, crypto collapses, etc. Another side of this argument may put us in a position that, well, every year is like that. That's for the future generations to decide. Still, looking back on 2022, the amount of uncertainty seems unprecedented relative to at least a decade prior. And I regret taking a long meditative break a few times during situations when I needed to act bravely. Not leaving the country soon enough, not seeing all the ominous signs, not telling the things I needed to tell, and needing to be more active in certain aspects of my work. I fucked up in many ways, summarized in a simple "failed at acting confidently." If there's one thing I need to take with me to the following year, it will be a bag of confidence. It will not get any easier, so I need much of it. 

I wrote about this topic a lot during the year. Like, a lot. Zooming out, I get the immense pleasure of knowing that many people I love are in a safe place, doing things they love. And many of them have a significant financial safety net, which is something I aspire to obtain myself. The feeling of abandonment has changed to a sense of gratitude and acceptance. Even a hundred miles away, I still love all the people I used to see daily before February 24. We'll meet again; for now, we need a stable internet connection.

This resulted from the most emotionally challenging project of my career last year. Ironically, it turned out to be a state-supported cultural thing that partially explains why we fought, screamed, and cursed each other in the team for the whole production period. I never fully allowed myself to take a break or at least work through this period with a therapist. Only because of the money involved, as soon as we finished this horrific production, I started developing a new one, basically "a part two" of the same thing. Then, war stroke, people left, and the industry collapsed. The anger I buried deep inside started to burst into flames as there was nowhere to let go of it. That affected my mental health, relationship, and productivity. I seriously contemplated doing something with myself to stop this pain for a moment. My professional world collapsed, the news cycle suggested that each new day would be far worse than yesterday, and all my friends had left for good. The first few months of the war were excruciating as it seemed like planning ahead was the worst idea possible. I saw no future, and it became hard to even wake up and do something to stay sane.Unfortunately, I somehow overcame it. I still don't know the exact recipe, but if I could retroactively pick one solution, my answer would be "try to stay curious." Only my inner curiosity allowed me to find meaning in an ever-changing world. Only a curious mind can listen closely to brilliant voices around and decide to move ahead in life, learn new skills, and find a footing ground and a new purpose. I firmly believe that curiosity saved me from the worst parts of my own psyche. That's why I only see the immense number of opportunities looking forward to and don't regret taking time away from work to fill the gaps in my technical skills. 

Whatever will happen in 2023, I'm sure it will not surprise and shock me that much. So let's keep it that way and hope for the better. Until there's a certain possibility of a nuclear outcome, I intend to plan for good things to happen. 

The main objective for the next year – is to relocate. I've been reading many state-produced documents on various scenarios moving forward which are not attractive. Basically, if you choose between USSR 2.0 and Z-Nation, I select "exit." For now, it's difficult to predict if I will relocate only by myself or with a partner as she's deeply rooted in the Russian language by the nature of her job. Next on my list – reassemble the team and go full-on into the project's development. We plan on meeting for a strategic session early in January to decide where we're going. There's a possibility that we'll split and walk in different ways or reinvent the core team and start a new development.

I am still figuring out what I want to do precisely. An awful sentence to write when you're approaching your 30s, I know. But my main goal is to connect my previous experience of the art world with entertainment production and cross-breed it with the web-based creator economy, engineering, and tools of the future. This time, it's much more technical for me rather than managerial. In this new stage of my career path, I want to engineer more, create more and make money while doing it for my passion. 

Sounds naive, but whatever. There's no turning back now. My final 2023 wide-ranging goal is to work on becoming a full-stack engineer and full-stack influencer (as per Balajis' idea). It's hard because there seem to be so many disparate skills. Still, I am genuinely interested in learning and build across web3, creator economy, crypto, while sharing my learning with all of you.

It was a unique year. So great to say goodbye to it.

Let's get it out of the way. 2022 turned out to be an enormous pile of shit. My experience can be easily applied to many people I've been lucky to encounter and talk to over the past few weeks. Indeed 2022 was a bummer, a shitstorm. It might be an interesting mental exercise to evaluate in retrospect what went wrong and where I landed myself by the end of 22'. As a matter of fact, it'll be a series of posts where I try dissect this strange period of my life.  

Some elephants in the room are easy to digest and state heads on. I've toyed with an immigration idea for some time to finally land on the conclusion that I have to postpone the move. I'm writing this post fully aware that I will not be able to quickly leave the country in the near future. Weighing in all the pros and cons of rapid immigration resulted from the substantial lack of funding, hard technical skills, and logistical troubles. Most of my time nowadays is spent learning and fixing all the necessary hard skills for the next chapter of my life. On the sideline, there're many passion projects with various degrees of potential success (or failures), which we continue to develop with the team at ThinkPink.

Overall, life became less turbulent in the final quarter of 22'. That's if you try to stay away from the "current thing" and follow a strict information diet. Money-wise, a few trading moves here and there allow for some mediocre gains. And at the same time, the cheap cost of living allows compounding all the money left from monthly spending. With that put aside and enough time on my hands, I read, watch, and consume a lot, giving me tremendous joy and extra knowledge. I write much more than I'm used to; that, for sure, made me a better thinker and allowed me to clear my head and bring new ideas into the world. 

But I'm most proud of the number of fitness habits I've gained this year. Talking about the one silver lining: 2022 is the most active year of my life in terms of physical activity. I never felt any healthier, and it warms my heart to know that it will only compound over the years if I stick to it. Also, I never took a proper break for the whole year, but that's more of a good thing. Unfortunately, my partner doesn't share the same attitude (that's why the first few weeks of 23' we'll probably spend on traveling around). That's where I stand as of this writing. 

Looking forward, I feel that the parts "future-Me" would want to review the most are mistakes and opportunities 22' have presented. 

Early in my professional career, the capacity to "rewind back" was my guiding light across every shitty cinema project that came into my hands. During a challenging shoot or a painful dialog with the client, this was my imaginary lifevest that rendered everything temporary. "I can always start something new" is how I used to convince myself. Now I've realized that holding the "rewind back" game card with a tight grip means never challenging yourself to the limits necessary to succeed in any endeavor. You live with the idea that whatever you do is reversible, which leaves a mark on any effort you consider unknown – "if it's bad, I can go back." And it's even more challenging to outline the progress scale: any potential win is perceived as a result of contingency. At the same time, any loss is a death sentence, so you get the "rewind back" card closer and closer to your heart. That's why almost any previous attempts at changing my career path before 2022 stopped when I realized that either the results were slow or the mistakes were not worth the pain. And here's why I'm ultimately grateful for everything that happened this year. The systems that I used to rely on in my filmmaking career are gone. The professionals I worked with, companies and investors – all disappeared. The career game suddenly became zero-sum, and I got a chance to go all in without fear of making mistakes. Web3 is no longer a side hustle I read about during the int/ext shootings. It became a lifestyle and a chance to reinvent myself into a better human being. For that alone, 2022 was not a disastrous year but somewhat groundbreaking. There's nothing to rewind back to now – only the future is ahead. 

I'll write more about Balaji in future posts because he's a single human being that has turned my brain and exposed it to the world of technology and science this year on 360. As far away from general perception as it stays now, the concept of The Network State empowers me to believe that this is the answer to the kind of system I would want to participate in in the next chapter of my life. We have many online communities today, but only a few are highly aligned with outside metrics like common interests or what platform you happen to be on. Although the internet has allowed people to reach massive audiences across the globe, we have yet to fully appreciate its potential to improve the number of connections and the quality of connections. You are no longer limited to those in close proximity. You can be a recognized economic and social force. I'm tired of projects that prey on loneliness to sell some promise of community in the metaverse. Now, the best and brightest minds started devoting their resources to tackling this problem – so it's exciting to see projects like Praxis emerge. So it's tempting to join an engineering movement of moral innovation and collective action. I'm not going to say that you should read The Network State because you have probably already done it or not going to. But that'll be one of the most important pieces of writing going forward into 2023 and beyond.

In a way, that's understandable. Across the different corners of the world, you can count a vast number of people feeling unstable after everything this year has brought. Be it the glooming recession, continuous war, climate change, AI advancements, crypto collapses, etc. Another side of this argument may put us in a position that, well, every year is like that. That's for the future generations to decide. Still, looking back on 2022, the amount of uncertainty seems unprecedented relative to at least a decade prior. And I regret taking a long meditative break a few times during situations when I needed to act bravely. Not leaving the country soon enough, not seeing all the ominous signs, not telling the things I needed to tell, and needing to be more active in certain aspects of my work. I fucked up in many ways, summarized in a simple "failed at acting confidently." If there's one thing I need to take with me to the following year, it will be a bag of confidence. It will not get any easier, so I need much of it. 

I wrote about this topic a lot during the year. Like, a lot. Zooming out, I get the immense pleasure of knowing that many people I love are in a safe place, doing things they love. And many of them have a significant financial safety net, which is something I aspire to obtain myself. The feeling of abandonment has changed to a sense of gratitude and acceptance. Even a hundred miles away, I still love all the people I used to see daily before February 24. We'll meet again; for now, we need a stable internet connection.

This resulted from the most emotionally challenging project of my career last year. Ironically, it turned out to be a state-supported cultural thing that partially explains why we fought, screamed, and cursed each other in the team for the whole production period. I never fully allowed myself to take a break or at least work through this period with a therapist. Only because of the money involved, as soon as we finished this horrific production, I started developing a new one, basically "a part two" of the same thing. Then, war stroke, people left, and the industry collapsed. The anger I buried deep inside started to burst into flames as there was nowhere to let go of it. That affected my mental health, relationship, and productivity. I seriously contemplated doing something with myself to stop this pain for a moment. My professional world collapsed, the news cycle suggested that each new day would be far worse than yesterday, and all my friends had left for good. The first few months of the war were excruciating as it seemed like planning ahead was the worst idea possible. I saw no future, and it became hard to even wake up and do something to stay sane.Unfortunately, I somehow overcame it. I still don't know the exact recipe, but if I could retroactively pick one solution, my answer would be "try to stay curious." Only my inner curiosity allowed me to find meaning in an ever-changing world. Only a curious mind can listen closely to brilliant voices around and decide to move ahead in life, learn new skills, and find a footing ground and a new purpose. I firmly believe that curiosity saved me from the worst parts of my own psyche. That's why I only see the immense number of opportunities looking forward to and don't regret taking time away from work to fill the gaps in my technical skills. 

Whatever will happen in 2023, I'm sure it will not surprise and shock me that much. So let's keep it that way and hope for the better. Until there's a certain possibility of a nuclear outcome, I intend to plan for good things to happen. 

The main objective for the next year – is to relocate. I've been reading many state-produced documents on various scenarios moving forward which are not attractive. Basically, if you choose between USSR 2.0 and Z-Nation, I select "exit." For now, it's difficult to predict if I will relocate only by myself or with a partner as she's deeply rooted in the Russian language by the nature of her job. Next on my list – reassemble the team and go full-on into the project's development. We plan on meeting for a strategic session early in January to decide where we're going. There's a possibility that we'll split and walk in different ways or reinvent the core team and start a new development.

I am still figuring out what I want to do precisely. An awful sentence to write when you're approaching your 30s, I know. But my main goal is to connect my previous experience of the art world with entertainment production and cross-breed it with the web-based creator economy, engineering, and tools of the future. This time, it's much more technical for me rather than managerial. In this new stage of my career path, I want to engineer more, create more and make money while doing it for my passion. 

Sounds naive, but whatever. There's no turning back now. My final 2023 wide-ranging goal is to work on becoming a full-stack engineer and full-stack influencer (as per Balajis' idea). It's hard because there seem to be so many disparate skills. Still, I am genuinely interested in learning and build across web3, creator economy, crypto, while sharing my learning with all of you.

It was a unique year. So great to say goodbye to it.